Why did the chicken cross the road?

I know what Alexa’s answer is, but that’s Artificial Intelligence malarky.

One of Jack’s answers: “To get to the other slide.” You know, sliding board. Good one, Jack!

Last night we had chicken spaghetti for supper. The family - Carrie, Maggie, 12, Jack, 8 and I - actually all sat down and ate together at the kitchen table (just like Wally, Beaver and the Cleavers used to do!)

While we enjoyed the Pioneer Woman’s recipe, Jack entertained us with a couple of 2nd grade jokes about “Why did the chicken cross the road?”

The thought suddenly occurred to me that, in my entire life, I’ve never once seen a chicken cross any road. I immediately shared this observation with the family.

“Maybe this is just some kind of urban legend, or one of those false narratives like Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction,” I offered.

This comment was met by blank stares from the kids and an eye-roll from my wife.

Still, the family humored me and I thought this was a better dinner conversation topic than my latest brainstorm on “early spread.”

***

It’s also a family joke that one day I’m going to give up my day job as freelance Substack author and become a stand-up comedian. I’ll specialize in improvisational comedy.

“Man walks into a bar,” I started. “The man’s already had one too many and he starts hitting on the woman next to him. Turns out he was talking to the wife of a jealous man. After he gets his butt kicked and gets thrown out of the bar, he ends up lying, dazed and bloody, next to the curb. He looks up and there in the haze he sees … a chicken crossing the road …”

It’s the first time he’s ever seen this and he decides, right there, in the gutter, to give up drinking …

My routine earned three thumbs downs, but I was serious that I’ve never seen a chicken actually cross any road.

I’ve seen plenty of black cats cross right in front of me while I was driving. (Indeed, this probably explains why I’m not yet a rich-and-famous Substack author.)

I’ve seen squirrels try to cross the road only to meet a sudden and sad end to their squirrel lives. (I think the better question might be “why did the squirrel try to cross the road?”)

In the last few years, I’ve seen far more deer dash across the road, which makes me think that there’s not as many hunters hunting big bucks as there used to be.

“People are cutting back on hunting as an inflation work-around,” I explained to my family, a theory which didn’t impress them either.

I believe I’m right about this too because I sometime go onto the back porch and take cigarette breaks when I’m writing Substack columns. I see families of deer all the time right there in our back yard. It’s almost like they’re pets by now.

“How are you doing, Ms. Deer,” I’ll say. The Mama deer will just look up, make eye contact and go right back to eating our grass, which doesn’t bother me because the grass needs cutting.

Carrie: “Don’t tell everyone you’re a closet smoker.”

Me: “Why not? It’s the truth.”  In fact, on Substack that’s my brand - I’m a fearless truth-teller.

Carrie: “But being a smoker is not politically correct. You’ll lose audience share. Nobody needs to hear the truth.”

Don’t tell anyone, but sometimes our wives make good points. 

Ah, that anecdote about me smoking as I chat with the deer …. It wasn’t true.  So I tell the kids:

“I used to smoke when I was in the Army, but I quit when I heard Anthony Fauci talk about a study that said it’s bad for you.”

Jack: “Dad, you weren’t in the Army!”

Dangit. It used to be a family joke that every cool thing I did, I learned how to do it in the Army. Now both my children are older and know the closest I got to the Army was one ROTC class. 

I get busted if I tell the truth; I get busted when I tell a lie. To tell the truth, I don’t know what to say any more.

But I’m deadly serious when I say I’ve never seen one chicken cross the road.

Still, I admit this could have happened somewhere at some place in some time.

True Chicken Stories …

Maggie, our 12-year-old, even had two anecdotes she shared with us that might prove this theory.

In recent months, a Troy family has paid Maggie and my wife to pet sit their dog when the family goes out of town.

I’ve never met Rex, but I learned that when Carrie and Maggie feed Rex his Alpo and take him for a walk that they also go in the back yard and feed this family’s chickens.

Yes, for some reason, this family has a pen with actual chickens in it. Not out in the country, but in the city limits. Apparently, the chickens get fed chicken feed.

And they aren’t the only family in Troy with chickens. Maggie just went to a spend-the-night party and her friend had “pet chickens.” Apparently, these chickens will never become chicken nuggets at McDonald’s … they just lay eggs.

Absorbing these stories, I realized it’s entirely possible any of these Troy chickens could have escaped their pens. If they did this, they’d probably just start walking. It’s very possible they could walk right across a road in my very own town.

But we still don’t have an answer to the age-old question …

But, again, I’ve never personally seen this happen. And even this hypothetical wouldn’t answer the age-old question of why the chicken crossed the road.

My take is that chickens are probably as dumb as rocks. They’d have no idea why they walked across the road. 

This afternoon Jack and I asked Alexa and she said the answer was “to get to the other side,” but I know this is Artificial Intelligence BS because the chicken doesn’t even know it’s on a road.

Once a chicken starts moving in one direction, it’s just going to keep going - unless it just got its head cut off and then it’s going to be running around in all directions wondering what the heck just happened to him.

“Bill!”

I guess I wasn’t supposed to upset the children at the dinner table by talking about chickens who get their heads cut off.

“Well, how do you think we got this delicious chicken spaghetti?”

Jack actually laughed.

“You ought to write a story about this on Substack,” said Jack.

Maggie: “I bet you won’t.”

Me: “How much you want to bet?”

Maggie: “Three dollars.”

Talk about sucker bets. What did she think? That her old Pappy was chicken? 

I won’t actually make Maggie pay me $3. Maybe she’ll clean up her room as payment.

Closing thoughts on this important question …

The world is a crazy place right now. Maybe I’ll live long enough to see an actual chicken cross the road. If I do, I’m going to video it with my smart phone. 

I’d put the video clip on Facebook, but I’m banned. That’s about all Facebook is good for - posting videos of chickens crossing the road - even if this is a rarer sight than Big Foot crossing the road.

***

UPDATE: Photographic evidence!

A subscriber in the Reader Comments provided photographic evidence that chickens do, in fact, cross the road. Now I just got an email from a subscriber in a Caribbean nation that seals the deal. There can be no doubt - chickens do cross the road. As always, I appreciate the editorial contributions of my subscribers!

A hen trying to keep up with her biddies. (I didn’t even know baby chickens were called “biddies” until I got this email.)

Almost half-way across the road: “Go, Chicken, go!”

Already made it across the road! I think this chicken crossed the road to get some table scraps from an outdoor cafe.